Friedrich Schiller Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Friedrich Schiller.
Famous Quotes By Friedrich Schiller
Every great mind seeks to labor for eternity. All men are captivated by immediate advantages; great minds alone are excited by the prospect of distant good. — Friedrich Schiller
Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance. — Friedrich Schiller
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily. — Friedrich Schiller
Yes great people are always subject to persecution and always getting into straits. — Friedrich Schiller
Ah, to that far distant strand
Bridge there was not to convey,
Not a bark was near at hand,
Yet true love soon found the way. — Friedrich Schiller
Joy is the mainspring in the whole
Of endless Nature's calm rotation.
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great Time-piece of Creation. — Friedrich Schiller
Mazarin shed tears over this great loss, which Conde, who had no feeling for anything but glory, disregarded. "A single night in Paris," said he, "gives birth to more men than this action has destroyed. — Friedrich Schiller
Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are. — Friedrich Schiller
The rich become richer and the poor become poorer is a cry heard throughout the whole civilized world. — Friedrich Schiller
If you want to study yourself, look into the hearts of other people. If you want to study other people, look into your own heart. — Friedrich Schiller
O'er Ocean, with a thousand masts, sails forth the stripling bold-
One boat, hard rescued from the deep, draws into port the old! — Friedrich Schiller
There are evil spirits who suddenly fix their abode in man's unguarded breast, causing us to commit devilish deeds, and then, hurrying back to their native hell, leave behind the stings of remorse in the poisoned bosom. — Friedrich Schiller
To know thyself
in others self-concern;
Would'st thou know others? read thyself
and learn! — Friedrich Schiller
The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself. — Friedrich Schiller
I follow my heart, for I can trust it. — Friedrich Schiller
Not he who scorns the Saviour's yoke Should wear his cross upon the heart. — Friedrich Schiller
Time consecrates; and what is gray with age becomes religion. — Friedrich Schiller
O tender yearning, sweet hoping!
The golden time of first love!
The eye sees the open heaven,
The heart is intoxicated with bliss;
O that the beautiful time of young love
Could remain green forever. — Friedrich Schiller
Man is an imitative creature. — Friedrich Schiller
The voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself bodily above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter. — Friedrich Schiller
What the inner voice says will not disappoint the hoping soul. — Friedrich Schiller
Brief is the sorrow - endless is the joy! — Friedrich Schiller
The mountain cannot frighten one who was born on it. — Friedrich Schiller
Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful. — Friedrich Schiller
He, that noble prize possessing He that boasts a friend that's true, He whom woman's love is blessing, Let him join the chorus too! — Friedrich Schiller
If you cannot please everyone with your deeds and your art, please a few. To please many is bad. — Friedrich Schiller
It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in. — Friedrich Schiller
The history of the world is the world's court of justice. — Friedrich Schiller
The will of man is his happiness. — Friedrich Schiller
Each state of the human mind has some parable in the physical creation by which it is shadowed forth; nor is it only artists and poets, but even the most abstract thinkers that have drawn from this source. Lively activity we name fire; time is a stream that rolls on, sweeping all before it; eternity is a circle; a mystery is hid in midnight gloom, and truth dwells in the sun. Nay, I begin to believe that even the future destiny of the human race is prefigured in the dark oracular utterances of bodily creation. — Friedrich Schiller
It is difficult to discriminate the voice of truth from amid the clamor raised by heated partisans. — Friedrich Schiller
A beautiful soul has no other merit than its own existence. — Friedrich Schiller
Around, around, Companions all, take your ground, And name the bell with joy profound! CONCORDIA is the word we've found Most meet to express the harmonious sound, That calls to those in friendship bound. — Friedrich Schiller
Misery travels free through the whole world! — Friedrich Schiller
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice — Friedrich Schiller
Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish play. — Friedrich Schiller
Knowledge, the object of knowledge and the knower are the three factors which motivate action; the senses, the work and the doer comprise the threefold basis of action. — Friedrich Schiller
The man of courage thinks not of himself. Help the oppressed and put thy trust in God. — Friedrich Schiller
Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss. — Friedrich Schiller
With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain. — Friedrich Schiller
Regarded in isolation, an idea may be quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme, but it may acquire importance from an idea which follows it; perhaps, in a certain collocation with other ideas, which may seem equally absurd, it may be capable of furnishing a very serviceable link. — Friedrich Schiller
The iron chain and the silken cord are both equally bonds. — Friedrich Schiller
Truth suffers no loss if a vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them. — Friedrich Schiller
Rigor pushed too far is sure to miss its aim, however good, as the bow snaps that is bent too stiffly. — Friedrich Schiller
The dignity of man into your hands is given;
Oh, keep it well, with you it sinks or lifts itself to heaven. — Friedrich Schiller
You have to go the rounds from individual to individual in order to gather the totality of the race. — Friedrich Schiller
Seraphs share with thee Knowledge; but Art, O Man, is thine alone! — Friedrich Schiller
Every man stamps his value on himself ... man is made great or small by his own will. — Friedrich Schiller
But how is the artist to protect himself against the corruption of the age which besets him on all sides? — Friedrich Schiller
Strange customs do not thrive in foreign soil. — Friedrich Schiller
We are too prone to find fault; let us look for some of the perfections. — Friedrich Schiller
History, insofar as it accustoms human beings to comprehend the whole of the past and to hasten forward with its conclusions into the far future, conceals the boundaries of birth and death, which enclose the life of the human being so narrowly and oppressively, and with a kind of optical illusion, expands his short existence into endless space, leading the individual imperceptibly over into humanity. — Friedrich Schiller
Life did not present its sunny side to thee. — Friedrich Schiller
The empire of Saturnus is gone by; Lord of the secret birth of things is he; Within the lap of earth, and in the depths Of the imagination dominates; And his are all things that eschew the light. The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance, For Jupiter, the lustrous, lordeth now, And the dark work, complete of preparation, He draws by force into the realm of light. Now must we hasten on to action, ere The scheme, and most auspicious positure Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight, For the heaven's journey still, and adjourn not. — Friedrich Schiller
Where there is much freedom there is much error. — Friedrich Schiller
The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are. — Friedrich Schiller
Appearance should never attain reality, And if nature conquers, then must art retire. — Friedrich Schiller
It is at the approach of extreme danger when a hollow puppet can accomplish nothing, that power falls into the mighty hands of nature, of the spirit giant-born, who listens only to himself, and knows nothing of compacts. — Friedrich Schiller
The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages. — Friedrich Schiller
Misanthropy is a slow suicide. — Friedrich Schiller
I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo. — Friedrich Schiller
Satisfied if they themselves can escape from the hard labour of thought, they willingly abandon to others the guardianship of their thoughts. — Friedrich Schiller
The man who fears nothing is as powerful as he who is feared by everybody. — Friedrich Schiller
In the case of the creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints of unfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely. — Friedrich Schiller
Culture, far from giving us freedom, only develops, as it advances, new necessities; the fetters of the physical close more tightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches even the ardent impulse toward improvement, and the maxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest wisdom of life. — Friedrich Schiller
He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has. — Friedrich Schiller
Why should I deem myself to be a chisel, when I could be the artist? — Friedrich Schiller
The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception and spirit and design he is hardly below even the poet. — Friedrich Schiller
Spring flies, and with it all the train it leads; and flowers, in fading, leave us but their seeds. — Friedrich Schiller
Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine. — Friedrich Schiller
A noble heart will always capitulate to reason. — Friedrich Schiller
There is more to life than just existing and having a pleasant time. — Friedrich Schiller
An honest man you may form of windle-straws, but to make a rogue you must have grist. — Friedrich Schiller
We can never replace a friend. When a man is fortunate enough to have several, he finds they are all different. No one has a double in friendship. — Friedrich Schiller
Have hope. Though clouds environs now, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put thou the shadow from thy brow - No night but hath its morn. — Friedrich Schiller
Ever building, building to the clouds, still building higher, and never reflecting that the poor narrow basis cannot sustain the giddy tottering column. — Friedrich Schiller
Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains. — Friedrich Schiller
In a narrow circle the mind contracts. Man grows with his expanded needs. — Friedrich Schiller
Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny. — Friedrich Schiller